Sample Commentary: The Visitor by Patricia Cresswell
Awarded: Grade 7
The short story The Visitor by Patricia Cresswell is a story about a man, McGill and his relationship with a little girl who visits him at his cottage. The story traces how he came to meet the girl and how their relationship developed.
The first paragraph of the story describes the setting. We realise that the story takes place at dawn, as the sun is rising. There is a certain sense of loneliness in the first paragraph. The sun is described as "thin", implying that its light does not reach every corner of the hill it is shining on. This is a strange way to describe the sun. However, this description implies that the hills are so "bleak" and lonely that even the sun could not make it seem less desolate. The hills only seem more miserable with the "hard and dry" ground and "bristling" grass. All in all, the setting does not seem very cheerful. Among this very bleak landscape stands a cottage which seems even lonelier as it is the "only sign of civilisation
for miles around." The cottage stands "as if anticipating the approach of an intruder." This anticipation only emphasises the loneliness of the cottage more, because it shows that the cottage is not used to having people visiting it, so that a visitor is called an "intruder". However, this anticipation also foreshadows the visits of the little girl that are to come in the story.
In the second paragraph, we are introduced to the main character of the story, McGill. He is the only character to be given an identity of a name. We find him "lying on an old coat he had found the previous day." This coat is interesting, as it is never mentioned again in the story. The author could have just made McGill lie on a coat and not specify whether it is a coat he found or his coat. But the author chooses to identify the coat as not his, but never again mention it.
We find McGill just lying there and thinking. We never know what he is thinking about. The fact that he lies there for a "long time" shows that he is comfortable with just lying by himself, thinking. He is comfortable with the silence and loneliness of the cottage he lives in.
It seems as if McGill's life is quite lonely and dark as something as simple and frequent as the sunlight should catch his eyes. It seems that the door of the cottage is holding in the darkness of McGill's life and only until the brightness of the sunlight "pierce[s] through the door" that a spot of light entered his cottage. This light coming into McGill's cottage might represent the little girl that could later visit
him, who McGill would grow to love. She eventually becomes the light of his life, what he looks forward
to everyday. The light "flickered, as if winking at him." This description of the light again supports the image of the light representing the girl. The flickering of light might represent the playfulness of a child. It is strange how it only "occur[s]" to McGill that someone might be outside after he has stared at the door for a long time. Why does he not immediately realise that there is nothing outside to hinder the ray of light ...
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him, who McGill would grow to love. She eventually becomes the light of his life, what he looks forward
to everyday. The light "flickered, as if winking at him." This description of the light again supports the image of the light representing the girl. The flickering of light might represent the playfulness of a child. It is strange how it only "occur[s]" to McGill that someone might be outside after he has stared at the door for a long time. Why does he not immediately realise that there is nothing outside to hinder the ray of light except the fact that someone might be there?
We learn that McGill has black hair. This contrasts greatly with the girl's very colourful appearance of green eyes and red hair. The contrast between the girl and McGill is emphasised even more in the fact that he is a full grown man while she is still a child. This contrast makes the friendship that would grow between them seem even more unlikely yet it emphasises the relationship even more because it is so unlikely.
The entrance of the little girl is very dramatic. "The door swung open." This very short sentence combined with the word "swung" creates a sense of strength and forcefulness. Yet this forcefulness completely disappears by gentle description: "Outside stood a child." It is strange how McGill finds it hard to determine the girl's age. He gives two probable age, eight and twelve. We would think he should be able to tell whether she is closer to one or the other since there should be a stark contrast between a child of eight and one of twelve. However, this dilemma in her age only emphasises the girl's mysteriousness even more. We never know why the girl is here in the first place, why she would want to come in and visit a man that presumably she doesn't know. The fact that she whispers her request to come in suggests that she is scared of McGill. So why does she want to come in? Also we
are never told why McGill would want to spend time with a child he doesn't know, why he let her in the house.
The girl is the essence of mystery. We never know who she is, where she comes from and how she got to the cottage, considering it is "miles" from anything. We don't know where she goes after visiting McGill, whether she has a home and why suddenly she comes from being a girl in a cotton dress in barefoot to be with a "well-dressed" woman in the village. Has she always been with this woman and sneaked out to see McGill? Or is this woman a recent addition to her life and is the reason she stopped coming to see McGill? We never really know.
The relationship that develops between McGill and the girl is also very strange. It is strange that she suddenly appears on McGill's doorstep, only to come in, drink some milk and leave. It is even more peculiar that she kisses McGill, a perfect stranger, before she leaves.
However, there is no doubt that McGill receives comfort from her visits. There is a suggestion of something very soothing in the seventh paragraph where the author describes how the girl comes to visit McGill everyday. We can clearly feel the happiness McGill does when the girl visits him. The tone of the paragraph is very soft and gentle, as we see McGill grow more attached to the girl, coming to lover her. We can see how she is now an important part of his life as he "only lived to see her come again." She offers a companion in his life, when he is so isolated from the world, being miles away from everything. We do not know if McGill was ever married or ever had a child. If he was, then
perhaps the little girl might remind him of something from his past, which would make her even dearer to him.
We find something is wrong when one day, the girl stops coming. We feel McGill's anxiety and sadness as "many times" McGill opens his door and looks for her. The next two paragraphs are the shortest in the story, which shows how McGill is anxious and impatient by the fact that the girl has yet to come visit him in three days.
We do not know especially why McGill was "laughed at and scorned" when he arrives in the village. It could be because he never goes to the village often and is seen as an outcast there. Whatever the reason, the frustration McGill must have felt is clearly depicted: "the air was choked with mocking voices and cruel thoughts." The word "choke" especially portrays how McGill must feel humiliated among these villagers. However, his determination and desperation to find the girl is emphasised even more because despite his humiliation, he "had to find her."
Then quite suddenly, just as sudden as her appearance on his doorstep, he sees her in with a "well- dressed" lady. We do not know who the woman is. There was something quite sad in the way that the author describes the girl this time, with shoes on her feet, her hair combed and tied back. The sadness is emphasised by the fact that the girl is crying. When she sees McGill, "her eyes [are] unchanged."
We do not know whether they are unchanged from the way she always looked at McGill when she
visits him or unchanged from how she was looking at the woman who is scolding her. If it is the latter, then the look in her eyes would presumably be very sad. She must feel out of place in the village, and this shows in her reaching out to McGill.
When the woman tries to pull the girl away from McGill, he feels "angry for the first time in his life." It is strange how he lived so long without once feeling angry. But this lack of anger from him until now emphasises his isolation from settlements even more. For so long he lived in loneliness with nothing to be angry about. Then the girl comes along and brings comfort into his life. And now, his comfort taken away from him, McGill feels anger.
There is something in McGill that is quite childlike. He doesn't understand why the woman had suddenly panicked. Here is a strange man, suddenly coming to grab the woman's child, it is natural that she would panic and scream. However, McGill does not take any of that into consideration but wants the child as his own. He had come to think of the child as his own that he does not stop to wonder where she came from in the first place. He is willing to do anything to get the child to go with
him, even strangling the woman. This rage and tantrum in his is somewhat childlike, as if he never had to deal with a situation like this before. This childishness in McGill's character could be one of the reasons why he grew so close to the child.
The story ends with McGill be taken away, presumably arrested, for strangling the woman. We do not know for sure whether the woman is dead. The interesting thing is that as he is being dragged away, McGill is "bewildered". It is as if he almost does not understand why people are stopping him from
being near the girl. This emphasises his lack of understanding of the way people are in the village and his isolation from the people of the village even more.
The ending is also interesting in the fact that we do not know what will happen to either the girl or McGill. No resolution is really being provided and this may leave the readers frustrated how the story ends. This frustration that readers might feel would destroy the sense of catharsis that they might have if a resolution was clearly provided by the author.
The language of this short story is very simple, with short sentences and simple vocabulary. The title of the story is also very simple. This could be to reflect the child that visits McGill and the simple relationship between them. There is a very simple relationship between McGill and the girl. She visits him everyday, they grow to become fond of each other. The girl herself carries an aura of simplicity. The only thing that might be considered not quite simple about her is the fact that she has red hair, which would make her stand out from a crowd. But aside from that, she wears a simple cotton dress, and drinks milk. While she is visiting McGill, there is never anything to suggest anything fancy about the girl, until McGill finds her in the village more finely dressed and with a "well-dressed" woman.
Also, the story mainly made up of narrative prose, with one single line of speech from the girl, asking him if she may come in. After that, there is no dialogue whatsoever in the story. There might be
implied speech in the last paragraph when McGill goes into the village, but what is said is never written out explicitly. This lack of dialogue, especially in the parts of the story describing the visits from the
girl shows how there is a comforting silence between McGill and the girl. They do not come together for conversation, but for the little comfort of being together could bring.
The Visitor explores the relationship between McGill and the girl, the relationship between McGill and the rest of the world, represented by the villagers. It shows the life of a man who have been so isolated from the rest of the world that he is a total stranger to its rules and etiquettes. While the
readers enjoy the comfort of the relationship between McGill and the girl, we are also frustrated by the
numerous questions about the identity of the girl and the ending the story. The sense of mystery envelops the story throughout as all through the story, there are so many questions left unanswered.
